To finish

Most closely associated with Mediterranean cooking but also very prevalent in Asian food, the…

Method

Make the base: Put the flour into a large bowl, then stir in the yeast and salt. Make a well, pour in 200ml warm water and the olive oil and bring together with a wooden spoon until you have a soft, fairly wet dough. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 mins until smooth. Cover with a tea towel and set aside. You can leave the dough to rise if you like, but it’s not essential for a thin crust.

Make the sauce: Mix the passata, basil and crushed garlic together, then season to taste. Leave to stand at room temperature while you get on with shaping the base.

Roll out the dough: If you’ve let the dough rise, give it a quick knead, then split into two balls. On a floured surface, roll out the dough into large rounds, about 25cm across, using a rolling pin. The dough needs to be very thin as it will rise in the oven. Lift the rounds onto two floured baking sheets.

Top and bake: Heat oven to 240C/fan 220C /gas 8. Put another baking sheet or an upturned baking tray in the oven on the top shelf. Smooth sauce over bases with the back of a spoon. Scatter with cheese and tomatoes, drizzle with olive oil and season. Put one pizza, still on its baking sheet, on top of the preheated sheet or tray. Bake for 8-10 mins until crisp. Serve with a little more olive oil, and basil leaves if using. Repeat step for remaining pizza.

Recipe Tip

Troubleshooting

If the dough is too wet: Add a bit more flour and work it in. If dough is too stretchy to roll out: Leave it to rest for 10 mins or so, then try again. You need far more pressure when rolling dough than when rolling out pastry.
If the base isn’t cooked: Baking the pizza on top of a preheated sheet
or tray should prevent this. However, it could
be too thick or have too much topping. If the
topping is cooked before the base, cover
with foil and give it another 5 mins.

Recipe Tip

Choose your toppings

Fancy a bit more topping? Here's some suggestions. Olives, ham and chargrilled artichokes; Spicy sausage, chilli or jalapeños and
sliced tomato; Spinach, garlic, gorgonzola cheese
and a whole egg cracked on top; Creamy mascarpone, pesto, roasted
red peppers and sliced mushrooms. Or if you are not sure what you fancy - why not do half and half.

Recipe Tip

Calzone

Pile sauce and toppings onto one half of the dough circle, brush the edge with
a little water, then fold and pinch to make a pasty shape. Bake until golden as before.

Recipe Tip

Garlic & rosemary bread

Leave the dough a
bit thicker, brush with oil and stud with
rosemary sprigs. Bake for 15 mins or until
risen and golden. Brush with garlic butter.

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Comments, questions and tips

Sooo good! We made these pizzas for the first time tonight and the kids even made their own and they turned out perfect! Beautiful.Who needs to order takeaway now?!

Lorna Dilleen

2nd Oct, 2017

5.05

So easy to make with the kids!

Huffs001

1st Oct, 2017

0.05

Utterly dreadful.
Dough was far too wet, even with suggested addition of more flour, failed to rise, and left the pizza flooded.
Ordered thai food instead. We'll find another recipe elsewhere.

shinybeing

22nd Jul, 2017

5.05

it's my first time to make a pizza! god! just following this recipe step by step, super easy, you can have pizza at home. base this recipe, you can creat various and unique pizza for your family. thanks for this recipe. definitely will try again and again.

MoonFan

13th Jun, 2017

5.05

This recipe is a keeper. I'm not great in the kitchen but the result it produced was fantastic. I preheated the dough before putting the toppings on and the pizza turned out beautifully. I will make this again but next time I will refrain from drizzling olive oil on top. The cheese already makes it oily. My kids loved it.

ruaridhsmum

10th Jun, 2017

5.05

Brilliant recipe! I only used it for the dough and made 2 little ones for the kids and one big one for myself and partner. I love cooking but am really not great at baking but this recipe was so easy to follow and quickly done without even too much mess in the kitchen. I put the crust in the oven with no toppings for 4 minutes to make sure it was cooked properly and used a heavy based baking sheet to cook it on top of and it was just delicious.

Alisoncmillar

4th Jun, 2017

5.05

So easy and tastes delicious!

myhomemadefood

20th May, 2017

5.05

This has been our go to pizza recipe for years, it never fails. We find that preheating the baking tray that the dough actually goes on helps to make the base nice and crispy which is how we like it.

harimarierose

17th Apr, 2017

3.8

Definitely a really good and very simple base! I found that even though I rolled my dough super thin I still had a soft base, so I think next time I will actually use a pizza tray for them as well as the pre-heated tray in the oven. Dough is good though, I might add a little more salt next time :)

kitbit151

27th Feb, 2017

5.05

Brilliant recipe for an easy to make pizza base ( toppings are whatever you like so I did not use that part of the recipe). I hadn't had much success with a different recipe which I tried a long time ago but with pizzas locally costing a bomb, I decided to try again. The first batch was far too sticky and wet, even after kneading, so the next time I added the (warm) water gradually until I had the right consistency. I let the dough rise first which it does quite quickly. The other useful tip was to press hard when rolling it out and turning it a quarter each time. I use a pizza tray ( the one with holes) and pre baked the bases for about 5 minutes to avoid stodgy centres, especially if you use a lot of toppings. The bases may bubble up so pricking them with a fork before they go in the oven and during baking helps keep them flat. Also froze the uncooked dough (after its first rise and knocking back) as it's useful to have a couple of these in the freezer for when you want to rustle up a quick snack. I also used them to make garlic flatbreads....shaped, drizzled over garlic butter, then baked. Yum. In a way I wish I hadn't found this recipe....

Pages

Where can I find a big thick cast iron baking tray? I have the one from Kitchencraft but it has only 27cm diameter which is quite small. Thanks

daverobbins385

17th Dec, 2015

can i put in plain white so i dont havt to go out and buy a new paket of flour

goodfoodteam

22nd Dec, 2015

A strong flour is usually recommended, as it has a higher gluten content that traps air and creates the open doughy texture, but plain flour will still work very well for a pizza, we wouldn’t really recommend using it for a loaf of bread though.

Lizlou57

7th Nov, 2015

Can I freeze after shaping and adding tomato base and cheese?

goodfoodteam

19th Nov, 2015

Yes, you can freeze unbaked pizza. Don't worry about proving it first, shape, top then get it into the freezer as soon as you can, open-freezing it on parchment lined baking trays. Wrap once solid. They will keep like this for 6 weeks. To bake: unwrap and thaw at room temperature before baking according to the recipe or bake from frozen allowing approx. an extra 15 mins.

simona8

29th Sep, 2015

How long does it need to be left to rise? Thank you

nichamster

21st Apr, 2015

5.05

Can you freeze the dough balls

goodfoodteam

12th May, 2015

Hi nichamster Thanks for your question. Yes - freeze after first rise. Defrost in the fridge overnight, then leave to sit on the work surface to come to room temp before shaping and proving.

Hlstevo

9th Mar, 2015

Am I wrong in thinking there should be some water in the pizza base?

goodfoodteam

12th May, 2015

Hi Hlstevo, thanks for getting in touch. As with all our recipes we do not list water in the ingredients - only in the method. Please refer to the method text to confirm the quanity of water needed.

Lulipie

22nd Feb, 2017

5.05

Excellent authentic thin crust pizza! Super easy. BUT PLEASE read everyone's comments before cooking as they are truly very helpful. In summary though I found: (1) You will need loads of extra flour when kneading as the dough is really very wet. (2) Oil your hands a little (olive oil) at the beginning of kneading to stop sticking and panic. (3) I cooked the bases first for about 4 minutes then added toppings and cooked for a further 8-10mins. My bases although I rolled them really thin and pre cooked them still didn't seem totally 100% cooked but we gobbled them down anyway as they tasted great. Next time I'll cook them for 6 mins first. For the topping I used DOUBLE the amount of passata as we like a good rich tommy base. Overall a great first attempt at pizzas washed down with loads of red wine. Super Recipe. Super easy pizzas that actually taste and look authentic. If you're a deep pan lover you will not like these pizzas! They are for the thin crust fan club ;) Enjoy :) x

ste_87

19th Oct, 2014

We used Plain flour rather than Strong and the recipe still tasted lovely!!

mrswhelan

12th Jun, 2014

5.05

Add a teaspoon of golden caster sugar to the pizza dough as it'll help the yeast.
For the tomato sauce base, you can use a couple of tablespoons of regular pasta sauce which most of us have tucked away in our cupboards. Add dried basil to the pasta sauce, a pinch of sugar and season to taste.
You probably wont need all the water, i never use that much when i make this recipe. Use a bit of common sense and gradually add the water the dough until it forms a kneadable ball. I then drizzle the dough with oil and need for 5mins. Then cover and let it rise for an hour to give the base a nice texture.
I also oil the surface that I'm going to roll the dough out onto rather than flour so it doesn't dry out the mix!
This is a fantastic recipe that is completely adaptable for your taste!
X

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